North Korea Moves Missile to Coast, but Little Threat Is Seen

SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea’s defense chief said Thursday that North Korea had moved to its east coast a missile with a “considerable” range, but that the weapon was not capable of reaching the United States. The disclosure came as the North’s military warned that it was ready to strike American military forces with “cutting-edge smaller, lighter and diversified nuclear strike means.”

North Korea has been issuing a blistering series of similar threats in recent weeks, citing as targets the American military installations in the Pacific islands of Hawaii and Guam, as well as the United States mainland.

In its latest threat on Thursday, it did not name targets but said its military was authorized to “take powerful, practical military counteractions” against the threats from B-2 bombers from the United States, B-52 bombers from Guam and F-22 jet fighters from American bases in Japan that have recently run missions over the Korean Peninsula during joint military exercises with South Korea.

“The moment of explosion is approaching fast,” the general staff of the North Korean People’s Army said in a statement carried by the North’s official Korean Central News Agency. “The U.S. had better ponder over the prevailing grave situation.”

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North Korean officials waited by the banks of the Yalu River, opposite Dandong, a Chinese city.CreditAgence France-Presse — Getty Images

Most analysts do not believe that North Korea has a missile powerful enough to deliver a nuclear warhead to the United States mainland or that it is reckless enough to strike the American military in the Pacific. Still, with the North’s bellicose language showing no signs of letting up, the United States said Wednesday that it was speeding the deployment of an advanced missile defense system to Guam in the next few weeks, two years ahead of schedule, in what the Pentagon said was a “precautionary move” to protect American naval and air forces from the threat of a North Korean missile attack.

Testifying before a parliamentary hearing, Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin of South Korea said the missile North Korea had moved to the east coast, possibly “for demonstration or for training,” appeared not to be a KN-08, which analysts say is the closest thing North Korea has to an intercontinental ballistic missile, though its exact range is not known. The new missile was unveiled during a military parade in the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, in April last year.

South Korean news media quoted military officials as saying that the missile was a Musudan. Deployed around 2007, the Musudan is a ballistic missile with a range of more than 1,900 miles, according to the South Korean Defense Ministry. Guam is nearly 2,200 miles from North Korea.

Wee Yong-sub, an army colonel and deputy spokesman for the Defense Ministry, would say only that the South Korean and American militaries had been closely monitoring the movements of all North Korean missiles, including the Musudan.

“Chances are not high that they will lead to a full-scale war,” said Mr. Kim, the defense minister, referring to the North Korean threats. “But given the nature of the North Korean regime, it’s possible that they will launch a localized provocation.”

On Thursday, for a second straight day, North Korea blocked South Koreans from crossing the border to enter a jointly operated industrial park, threatening the future of the last remaining symbol of inter-Korean cooperation. It also warned that it would pull out more than 53,000 North Korean workers from the joint factory park, located in Kaesong, a North Korean city, if taunts from the South Korean news media continued.

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The Times’s David E. Sanger on how the Obama administration is reacting to North Korea’s nuclear maneuvers.

After the North threatened to close the industrial complex last week, some South Korean news reports said the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, would be all talk but no action when it came to the park because he did not want to risk one of his most precious sources of hard currency.

But the rising tensions are now being felt by international businesses. The chief executive of the General Motors Corporation, Daniel F. Akerson, said Thursday that G.M. was closely watching the situation on the Korean Peninsula and drawing up contingency plans for the safety of its employees in South Korea, where it has five plants, Reuters reported.

Mr. Akerson said that it would be hard to shift production from South Korea, but that if tensions continued to rise, G.M. would have to consider such a move. “You’ve got to start to think about where you have the continuity of supply and safety of your assets and your employees,” he said in an interview on CNBC. “It’s a concern to everybody.”

Amid the turmoil, a group of hackers called Anonymous claimed responsibility on Thursday for what appeared to be an attack on Uriminzokkiri, a Web site used by the North Korean government as a propaganda tool. On the site’s Flickr account, a picture was posted depicting Kim Jong-un as a pig.

In a statement released through Twitter, Anonymous demanded that North Korea “stop making nukes and nuke-threats” and allow uncensored Internet access for all its people. It also called for Mr. Kim to resign.

There was no immediate reaction from North Korea.

Last month, North Korea accused South Korea and the United States of hacking attacks that briefly paralyzed several of its official Web sites. Later, the computer networks of three banks and broadcasters in South Korea were disrupted. The South’s government is investigating whether North Korea was involved.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A6 of the New York edition with the headline: North Korea Moves Missile to Coast, but Little Threat Is Seen. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe